I'll intersperse some comments with the questions below. I didn't have
any comments for 5-9.
Dave Werth
Garmin AT, Inc.
Salem, Oregon
-----Original Message-----
From: EMC NetWorker discussion [mailto:NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU] On
Behalf Of JGillTech
Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 12:05 PM
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Subject: [Networker] General NetWorker Admin Questions for the New Guy
I am new to NetWorker administration and have collected a list of
questions that I don't have answers to after reviewing NetWorker
documentation. The documentation was either not clear or not present at
all in regard to the following inquiries:
1. Server Parallelism. How do you determine the proper level of
parallelism? Further, I have noticed a number of NetWorker resources
with an attribute related to parallelism. What is the limiting
attribute: group, client, or media pool resource? Any recommendations
to setup properly?
DFW> This is a big subject with lots of opinions. At a minimum I would
set enough parallelism to keep your backup devices running to their
capacity. After that too much parallelism may slow down restores if the
chucks of a particular saveset in a group get to spread out on the
backup. Personally I've limited parallelism to 4 per client and 12 for
the group but that could change if our situation were different (We have
1 Networker Server, 14 clients and back up around 900 GB for a full
backup to AIT-4 tapes).
2. What is the verdict on consolidate backups? I found little
information detailing their usefulness. I am planning on running
incremental backups Sun - Friday with full backups every Saturday.
DFW> Not sure what you mean by consolidate backups. We run incrementals
through the week and fulls on weekends. I have one group and one pool
to back it up to. It works fine for us.
3. What is the best method to remove cloned volumes for offsite
storage? What I say remove, extract from my tape library. Do I need to
change the mode within NetWorker administration?
DFW> We're still on 7.2.2 but I just use the Withdraw command on the
Networker Administrator Autochanger console to send the tape to the
output port and send them out.
4. In regard to the cloning process. My backup strategy involves
incremental backups Sun-Friday and full backups Sat. The last Saturday
in the month, I want to perform a clone (with different retention
policies) of a full backup and store off site. How can this be
scheduled or configured within NetWorker? If there is a better
strategy, please feel free to comment. I have 20 clients with 2 LTO3
drives in a 38-port tape library.
DFW> We automatically clone all of our backups and send the clones
offsite 5 days a week. If you only want to clone the "last Saturday"
backup you could make a separate group for it with cloning turned on. I
don't know about separate retention policies since that isn't available
on our version. You can make separate client instances and schedules
for that group if they have different attributes. You may have to
manually edit the schedule for the regular backups so it skips backups
on your "last Saturday" backups.
5. Why are some of the NSR peer information resources (Certificates)
named by their FQDN rather than the hostname alone? Are there any
implications? Windows clients are listed by their host name, not the
FQDN.
6. What is the best NetWorker server configuration for dual NICS?
Smart Load Balancing, Link Aggregation, Failover? I have the broadcom
NICS from Dell that have TOE support... However, I rebuilt my NW server
on Windows 2008, which does not have support for TOE yet. I have 2 LTO3
drives that are on an Ultra SCSI320 bus.... not sure what the max speed
is off the top of my head.
7. How many writes/reads can you perform on LTO3 media until you start
to see errors?
8. In regard to open files. I know that VSS is now standard on Windows
2003, 2008, and Vista. What about Windows XP? What do you recommend
for an Open File Manager? Does Windows Change Journal Manager take care
of this?
9. I have read a lot about maximum block size. How do you find out
what block size provides the best performance? Where do you change the
device block size? Further, how do you find out what the maximum block
size is in Windows 2008?
Thanks for your time.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
|This was sent by Jonathan.Gill AT uconn DOT edu via Backup Central.
|Forward SPAM to abuse AT backupcentral DOT com.
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign off this list, send email to listserv AT listserv.temple DOT edu and
type "signoff networker" in the body of the email. Please write to
networker-request AT listserv.temple DOT edu if you have any problems with this
list. You can access the archives at
http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/networker.html or
via RSS at http://listserv.temple.edu/cgi-bin/wa?RSS&L=NETWORKER
To sign off this list, send email to listserv AT listserv.temple DOT edu and
type "signoff networker" in the body of the email. Please write to
networker-request AT listserv.temple DOT edu if you have any problems with this
list. You can access the archives at
http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/networker.html or
via RSS at http://listserv.temple.edu/cgi-bin/wa?RSS&L=NETWORKER
|
